In recent decades, more and more empirical studies have established the benefits of breathing. It may be hard to believe that something we do anyway can become a powerful tool for improving well-being, but that’s exactly the conclusion of many studies. For instance, a 2021 study in India involved teaching healthcare providers “SKY” (Sudarshan Kriya […]
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The Purpose of Purpose
There’s a lot of talk about purpose and the importance of “having a purpose” for a sense of well-being, but in all that purpose-talk, we don’t have a lot of clarity about what having a purpose actually means. So, let’s dig into the notion of purpose and see what we can find. Many people seem […]
Continue ReadingWhy you need a philosophy of life (coach)
No matter who you are, you have something in common with everyone else: You have a life to manage. You make choices that determine the contours and content of your life, for the near and the distant future. You plan; you revise. You review and reflect — a little, or a lot. And at times, […]
Continue ReadingWhat’s wrong with lifelong learning?
A tale of two grannies We like to talk about lifelong learning, and a lot of what we say — aspirational though it may be — leaves out the important part, which also happens to be the hard part. My two grannies illustrate this tendency: They were both “lifelong learners,” but what their love of […]
Continue ReadingPlan D
In life as in my various administrative roles in academia, I have earned a well-deserved reputation for always having a Plan B (and Plan C). I hate surprises, so I plan for contingencies. After all, if you’ve done your homework, you can go to class and relax. But there’s one “contingency” in life that may […]
Continue ReadingConfession of a Rational Animal
There’s a lot to appreciate about Aristotle’s definition of our species as rational animal. We are animals with the capacity for reason — including the all-important ability to guide our decisions and behavior through the exercise of reason. I’ve devoted much of my life to practical reason and the pursuit of excellences that enrich our […]
Continue ReadingManaging Reason Fatigue
There have been a number of articles in the news about the growing anger of vaccinated people at the unvaccinated, confrontations about masks and social distancing, and of course, plenty of expert advice that shaming, scorn, and insults do not generally move people to be “responsible.” Behind all this lies what I call “reason fatigue”: […]
Continue ReadingRumors of excellence
I’ve been thinking about excellence for a long time, and one aspect of this rumination has been listening to the way people think and talk about excellence. It seems we have two common perspectives on excellence, and each of them miss something essential about striving for excellence — what I call excellencifying. It’s hardly a […]
Continue ReadingPanpsychism, part 2: privileged access
In my previous post about panpsychism, I talked about postulates that allow us to engage in knowledge-making in certain domains. For instance, the assumption that the laws of nature that operate around our neighborhood operate everywhere: While this postulate is required for us to engage in science, it can’t be proved by science — for […]
Continue ReadingPerforming language
I’ve had a few questions about my Pronouns post, and I want to take a moment to clear up a possible confusion about “performing.” In English, the word perform has various connotations, of which we can differentiate two main themes. When actors perform a part, they are, to be crude, pretending to be someone they […]
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